High Radiation Material Detection Robot

Aminu Bugaje 1*,, A.B. Shallah2, A. Z. Loko3, A. U. Ismail4

1
National Space Research and Development Agency, Abuja Nigeria
2
Kebbi State University of Science and Technology, Nigeria
3
Department of Physics Electronics/Nasarawa State University Keffi PMB 1022, Nigeria
4
Kaduna Polytechnic, Nigeria
Abstract

In modern day world, the field of robotics is expanding very rapidly. Such advancement in science and technology have led to a rapid
development in the design and manufacturing of these robots enabling them to provide human capabilities without the inherent
shortcoming associated with the human capabilities; such as boredom, fear, slow response, vulnerability, forgetfulness, inefficiency etc.
Therefore, this paper focuses on the designing and building of a mobile robot for detecting the acid level of a farmland and report back on a
serial terminal by the aid of sensors to navigate through grid. The mobile robot most move through the squares and detect the acid levels
and at the end provides us with information on the number of squares and detected acid levels. The robot's area of operation is limited to six
squares each of dimension 60cm×60 cm. Red square spots with dimensions 20cm by 20cm are used to indicate a high acidic level. The
robot uses two wheels controlled by servos for the navigation and four general purpose IR and LDR sensors for the sensing the farmland
and navigation control.

Keywords: mobile robot, farmland, IR sensors, LDR sensors

1. Introduction human control over their movements 4. It is defined

that, a robot is a machine that thinks, senses and acts.
The field of robotics has been hastily expanding in In artificial intelligence, such systems are known as
this 21st century due to advancement in science and “agents”. Autonomous robots are distinguished from
technology. Rapid development in the design and software agents that they are embodied and situated in
manufacturing of robots enable them to offer human real world. They receive information from the world
capabilities without the shortcoming associated from through their sensors. They can be touched, seen,
human such as slow response, vulnerability, heard, have physical dimensions, and exert forces on
inefficiency and forgetfulness. Mobile robots are one other objects. For example, there are robots that can
of those robots that can deliver human ability which kick the ball, assembled parts, washing the airplanes,
in this case, it can move from one place to another. and etc. Autonomous robots are increasingly evident
This provides a robot a much greater flexibility to in many aspects of industry and everyday life 5.
perform complex and exciting tasks. Due to its The components of a basic autonomous robot are a
mobility, this robot is used in many applications such controller, control software, sensors and actuators 6.7,8.
as farm automation, hospital, education, The designer defines the robot's starting point and the
entertainment, space exploration, military and security robot can then move with respect to this point along
system 1, 2. desired path with the aid of sensors. The controller is
Essentially, since the advent of the nuclear age, generally a microprocessor, embedded
man has unwittingly produced environment in which microcontroller or a personal computer (PC). Mobile
access was limited largely due to the danger presented control software can be either assembly level
by excessive amounts of exposure to radiation, but language or high-level languages such as C, C++,
also due to space limitations, and due to poisonous Pascal, Fortran or special real-time software. The
and combustible atmospheres. Robotic systems offer sensors used are dependent upon the requirements of
an optimal response to any of these challenges, the robot. The actuators associated with the robot
removing the need for human entry to these locations serves as final control elements in which information
and often supplying reports on the status of such perceived by the sensors are processed and
locations that would otherwise not be accessible 3. transformed into a desired a mechanical action 9.
Essentially since the advent of the nuclear age, man
Mobile robots can be grouped into few categories has unwittingly produced conditions in which access
which one of it is autonomous robots. Autonomous was limited largely due to the danger presented by
robots are intelligent machines capable of performing excessive amounts of exposure to radiation, but also
tasks in the world by themselves, without explicit due to space limitations, and due to poisonous and
**
Corresponding author.
E-mail: [email protected]
combustible atmospheres. Robotic systems offer an Electronic Components
optimal response to any of these challenges, removing
the need for human entry to these locations and often The electronic components used to complete the
supplying reports on the status of such locations that mobile robot are Infrared (IR) sensors (three units),
would otherwise not be accessible. Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) sensor (one unit),
7805 voltage regulators (one unit), push buttons (two
units) and 7-segment display (one unit). Two IR
System description sensors are used for the mobile robot to move
following the grid lines of farm land, while the other
Overview one IR sensor is used for detecting which grid the
mobile robot is situated (location of mobile robot).
The mobile robot is design to detect the dangerous The LDR sensor is used to detect the high radiation
radiation material in a farm land and report back on a material inside the farm land square. With the aid of
serial terminal. The robot is equipped with sensors to coding, the number of radiation material will be
navigate through the farm land square grids. The counted. The two push buttons are for Start/Stop
mobile robot will be moving along all the six squares function (one unit) and to send the information to
and detect the high radiation materials. At the end, it serial port (one unit). The 7-segment display helps to
will provide the number of radiation material square show the number of high radiation material as the
detected by the mobile robot. mobile robot goes along the farm land. Finally, the
The sample farm land consists of a grid of six 60 7805-voltage regulator is used for the power supply to
cm x 60 cm squares. The grid consists of black tapes the board and ensure it receive safe voltage supply.
(1.8 cm width) separating the farm land into six
squares. Squares with 5 cm x 5 cm size in the grid Arduino with ATmega328 Microcontroller
indicate high radiation material while the grid without
the square indicates low/no radiation material. The The Arduino Uno is a microcontroller board based
high radiation material can be in any grid squares. It is on the Atmel ATmega328 8-bit microcontroller. It has
a high light reflective material which randomly 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as
placed. PWM outputs), 6 analogue inputs, a 16 MHz quartz
Appropriate sensors and software are embedded to crystal, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP
the robot to navigate through the grid to detect and header and a reset button. This Arduino MCU board
collect data. The squares with high radiation material contains everything needed to support the
are stored in memory for later reporting. The robot is microcontroller. And to get started, simply connect it
based on existing frame with 2 servos controlling the to a computer with a USB cable or power it with an
wheels. The diameter of the robot is 18 cm. The robot AC-to-DC adapter or battery4.
enters the grid from square 6 and exits from square 1. The Uno can be programmed with the Arduino
The mobile robot uses one 7-segment LED display Software (Integrated Development Environment)
and 2 push buttons for START/STOP and to report which is a simplified version of the C / C++
the radiation material on serial terminal. The Arduino programming language. The Arduino Uno provides
ATmega328 microcontroller is used as an onboard users with the possibility to develop a program on any
microcontroller for the purpose of coordinating all the computer and download it to the board directly and it
components based upon the desired objective. The runs automatically. It also contains a Boot loader that
entire system is powered by 9.0V DC source. allows the user to run new programs without the use
of an external hardware programmer. The pin out
configuration is shown in Fig 2.

High radiation
materials
Fig. 1. Farm Land Square Grids
as platform arrangement. Fig. 4 shows the
methodology flow followed during the hardware and
software development.

Fig. 2. Arduino Uno Pin Configuration

Wheel Drive System

The wheel drive system consists of two continuous

rotational servomotors (GWS servo S03N STD). A
servomotor is an assembled of a DC motor, gear
assembly, and 5 potentiometers in conjunction with
an intelligent circuit. The gears rotate based on a
command desired by the operator. A continuous servo
motors is basically the modified version of the actual
servos. They are made to rotate up to 360° by
changing some mechanical connections of the basic
servo motors.

Fig 4. Project Flow Chart

Specifications

The requirements are to design a mobile robot with

appropriate sensors and software to navigate through
the farm land grid to detect and collect data. The data
is to be reported later in Arduino's serial monitor
terminal. The specifications for the robot systems are
as follows:
Fig 3. GWS servo S03N STD i. The sample farm land consists of grids of six
60cm x 60cm squares as shown in Fig 1 and
Fig 9.
Design and Construction ii. The grids consist of black tapes (1.8cm width)
Overview
separating the farm land into six squares.
iii. GREEN squares with dimension 20cm x 20cm
This chapter describes the technical details the in the grid indicate the presence of high
project which includes the hardware components; radiation materials, while grids without black
power condition circuit design, sensor connection, squares indicate low/no radiation material.
servo connection, and software development as well iv. GREEN squares for the high radiation
materials can be randomly placed in any grid.
High Radiation Materials Detection Using LDR Sensor the number of high radiation materials as per project
requirements. Other components are explained in
Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) sensor is used to previous sections.
detect the light intensity from the foil paper (which is
used as high radiation material on the farm land). The
detection will be used to count the number of high
radiation materials exist in the farm land. LDR works
in a simple principle that its resistance decreases with
light falling on it.

Fig 6. The Illustration of Mobile Robot

Fig 5. Mobile Robot with LDR Sensor

Line Following and Square Box Counter

Two IR sensors connected to pins A0 and A1 of

Arduino board and placed side by side on the mobile
robot. If the two of them are on the grid line (black
tape), the mobile robot will move forward. If the left
IR (LEFT-IR) sensor is out of the line (does not detect
the black tape), the car will move to the right and
bring the mobile robot back on track. Which means,
both IR sensors will detect the grid line.
In other case, if the right IR (RIGHT-IR) sensor is
out of the line, the mobile robot will move to the left
and bring the robot back on track. With this
configuration, the mobile robot has the ability to Fig 7. Full circuit connections of high radiation detection mobile
move precisely on the line with error correction robot
capabilities. The third IR sensor (IR 3) is connected to
pin A3 on Arduino board and is used to detect the
location of the robot. It counts the number of square Result and Discussion
box (farm land grid) as the mobile robot passes
through the grids. Testing and Debugging

RIGHT-IR out of black line - move left

LEFT-IR out of black line - move right The testing and debugging of each module are done
MIDDLE-IR detected black line - move forward in two stages, serial display and onsite testing. During
the first stage, each module is tested separately via
Hardware and Software Development serial monitor where the Arduino Uno board is
programmed to display the states of each hardware
Fig. 6 shows the illustration of fully functioning connected to the board with three IR sensors, one
mobile robot. The battery bank is used to supply LDR sensors, servos, seven-segment LED and the two
power the Arduino Uno through the available power pushbuttons. This is done module by-module to
port on Arduino Uno. Then, both motors are power by prevent the accumulation of problems throughout the
internal regulated 5V supply from Arduino UNO. The entire program codes. Once all the modules are being
7-segment LED (on the breadboard) is used to display tested separately, all the modules are combined in one
script and tested again. Only then we proceed to the
next stage where the robot is tested on the self-built
platform according to the specifications in project References
outline. The fully assembled mobile robot is shown in
Fig 8. 1 BAN L.Y., Maze Solving Robot with Instant Obstacle
Avoidance Ability. Universiti Teknologi Malaysia: Johor,
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012.
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reading of the IRs. Three IR sensors (IR0, IR1, IR2) Gans, and S. Member, ‘Tracking Control of Mobile Robots
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not detect any black colour (means robot mobile is
located at square box's corner, see Fig. 9). The square
detection is done by an LDR sensor. Every time the
robot crosses the boundary of square box, IR3 should
detects the black line and increase the
SQUARECOUNT by 1.

Fig 9. Mobile robot in operation

Conclusion

Objectives of the project has been accomplished.

The mobile robot was able to move through all the six
squares (the farm land) and sensing all the high
radiation materials exist in the farm land. The number
of high radiation materials is reported in serial
monitor display at the end of the work.